PN MEP Candidate Peter Agius speaks about the government’s proposal of 12 additional seats in Parliament. 

Increasing female participation in politics is very good but will not of itself deliver results for women at the work place. “The government’s proposals are an exercise of tokenism that do not address our serious shortcomings with female participation across the board. This government has much to answer in this regard”.

The Tajani speechwriter argues that under former PN administrations, female participation on government boards was 30%. This is now down to 15% under Joseph Muscat. The same goes to the gender pay gap which rose from 8% to 16% in the last six years.

In his latest blog from the European Parliament, Agius calls on the government to implement the recently approved Parental Leave Directive that includes measures how parents would support each other in raising their children in a family-friendly environment and also makes it easy for more women to join the workforce or progress in their career.

Female participation increases not by tokenism or PR stunts but by investing thoroughly to sustain the whole working population to the benefit of the whole society, concluded Agius.